Dancer Guide by Wasa
currently under construction Welcome to my first article. Since Dancer is my favorite job I figure it's a good place to start. I'll try to cover gear, party strategy, and soloing as best as I can. Gear Head :Lvl 9: Compound Eye Circlet (Great Evasion piece for the level) :Lvl 14: Noble's Ribbon (Macro this in for Cures) :Lvl 21: Beetle Mask/Beetle Mask +1 (for better defense only) :Lvl 24: Emperor Hairpin / Empress Hairpin (DEX+ for added Acc+, Eva+10 for when you pull hate) : this is the best piece of head gear for dancer til 70 unless your race has low Str and good Dex :Lvl 30: Mercenary Captain's Headgear(If you don't have an Empress/Emperor Hairpin) :Lvl 43: Walkure Mask (use only to boost your damage if your hitting for 0 in parties) :Lvl 50: Crow Beret / Raven Beret for those times you don't want to pull hate. :Lvl 54: Dancer's Tiara AF (macro in for sambas and cures only) :Lvl 65: Wivre Mask (this is a good replacement for Emp Pin for Mithra and Taru) :Lvl 68: Cobra Cap (use for TP and Acc.) :Lvl 70: Optical Hat (this is possibly the best solo head piece for dancer) :Lvl 72: Pahluwan Qalansuwa (Good DD piece) :Lvl 72: Panther Mask/+1 (arguably better than Walahra Turban for DNC +1 version only) : 2% less haste in exchange for 29def, 6chr for curing, and resist paralyze which can be death for dancers :Lvl 72: Etoile Tiara Relic :Lvl 74:Dancer's Tiara +1 :Lvl 75: Walahra Turban (combined with Haste and Store TP gear this can help quickly gain you TP when running low) :Lvl 75: Denali Bonnet (better than Walahra Turban. Macro in Panther Mask +1 for cures) :Lvl 75: Etoile Tiara +1 Party Strategies In parties there are 3 strategies for dancer, Main Healer (with support), Support and Damage Dealer Main Healer :Your main focus early on is going to be accuracy and charisma but do not ignore attack as you will need enough to deal damage to :generate TP. Haste and Store TP to meet the increasing demand on your TP at higher levels. :You will also want gear to reduce hate. (crow and raven are excellent sets for this but are lvl 50) Advantages of Dancer Main Healer :No down time. (unless your party is fighting things way to tough) :Can Aspir Drain to help PLD Tank keep MP high. :Drain Samba will greatly reduce you need to cure and reduce the amount you will need to cure for. :Cannot be silenced. (they can but they just laugh) :Can Cure for large amounts in a flash to keep party member from dying. :Can Aoe cure party. :Can Erase status effects on party members. :Can reduce weapon delay for all melee jobs attacking mob. :Cures heal for double the previous Waltz with only a 15tp increase in cost (curing waltz iv is the exception curing about 50% more) Disadvantages of Dancer Main healer :All dancer abilities generate a decent amount of hate :Paralyze is the dancers silence (avoid mobs with ice spikes) :Dancers must hit the mob to gain TP, which adds to your enmity :Poorly equipped tanks or tanks that do not maintain hate can quickly drain your TP (same is true of WHM MP) :Dancer has a global timer for each type of ability ::Sambas 1 minute ::Steps 15 seconds ::Cures progressively longer starting at 5-6 seconds to 20 seconds :Dancer can not recover TP simply by resting like a normal healer Tips for Dancers filling the role of main healer. :Do not Duel Wield even if using NIN sub. this ups your damage but ultimately lowers your TP over time. :Keep Drain Samba up (it doesn't have to be your highest one) :Stop using abilities if you pull hate unless your party is going to wipe other wise. :Carry Icarus Wings for start of party and for those times your support runs out of mp and your TP is low. :Only use accuracy food to make sure you hit :Use Quickstep if your still having trouble hitting :Use Box Step if your not hitting for at least 1 damage :Use reverse flourish often, even if you only have 2 finishing moves (4 is optimal TP cost to TP gain) :Rotate steps instead of repeating the same steps for 1 finishing move :While Ninja sub is great, at 60 you may want to consider Samurai as your sub ::Store TP II, Meditate and Zanshin all help to maintain high TP Support :The focus of the Dancer in the support role can be compared to Bard and Corsair :Assist the Main Healer, and improve party performance while pulling your own weight on damage :You may and probably will be asked to pull at some point as a dancer Advantages of the Support Dancer :This is where a dancer really shines, pretty much every ability helps your party Disadvantages of the Support Dancer :Again your main problem is going to be Enmity that your abilities generate Tips for Support Dancer :If you have a Melee Mage heavy party and your fighting mobs that can be Aspired use your Aspir Drain ::Paladin, Blue Mage, Red Mage and Dark Knight fall into this grouping :If you have Haste Samba this is going to help your party Damage the mobs faster for quick kills :Drain Samba is great against AoE mobs like Goblins, and Spike mobs like Undead :Don't forget about Stutter Step, this helps your Black Mage and Red Mage spells land more successfully Damage Dealer :So you want to turn an awesome support job into yet another damage dealer. Well so do I lol. :This is a purely for fun build so don't expect most parties to say oh ok :I call this the DDD cause it's kinda retarded but in a fun way Advantages of the DDD :Your abilities don't just help you do more damage, they help your whole party do more damage :Self skill chains :Fast TP building for Weapon Skills :High Accuracy and Evasion bonus for pulling hate and dealing with it :Access to 2 weapons with chance to swing twice :Saber Dance which grants you Double Attack Disadvantages of the DDD :Daggers do relatively low damage :Your other weapon choices are almost nonexistent (you'll need merits to bring them up) :Your first Multi-hit weapon skill that takes advantage of your high chr and improved accuracy is at level 60 :You will need lots of haste and store tp gear while not totally ignoring gear that will bring your damage up Tips for the DDD :Use a sword in your off hand (merits strongly suggested) :Wait till 60 to even attempt this :H2H is viable with Monk sub and destroyers but you won't have access to Asuran Fists :Haste gear can be expensive, fortunately 4 pieces with a combined haste of 16% can be obtained for free ::Walahra Turban 5%, Rapparee Harness 4%, Swift Belt 4% and Etoile Tights 3% so get these :Haste Samba does not count towards the Haste caps and can be merited up to 10% total weapon haste Solo Strategies Shattering Stars If you make edits to the contents please use strike through for the content you are correcting or replacing Thank You